Monday, March 08, 2004

Manufacturing Jobs

I like Bill Maher. I think he got a raw deal after September 11th, and I'm glad he is back on the air. Where? HBO of course.

New Rule: A hamburger is not the same thing as a car. The Bush Administration wants to reclassify fast-food jobs as manufacturing jobs. [laughter] Talk about parsing the language. Bill Clinton may have finessed the definition of sex, but he never claimed his penis was actually a glass of lemonade. [laughter] [applause] A Quarter Pounder may spend a week in your colon, but that doesn't make it a 'durable good.' [laughter] [applause]

It is a poor understanding of economics that makes this joke funny. Why should we ever care how a job is classified? All we should ever care about is what it pays. If flipping burgers paid $20 an hour it would be a good gig. Remember the only reason to work, is so that you can consume now, and through savings consume later.

So which job would you rather have? Working in a manufacturing job in 1913 for Henry Ford for $5 per day or work in retail for $10 an hour at WalMart? Check this out. The point is that in terms of purchasing power the jobs are nearly identical, in terms of the skills and dare I say effort required, WalMart is far easier. So who cares how we classify jobs...